US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin will meet with his Australian and Japanese counterparts in Darwin this weekend, US officials in Australia said.
Trump said on Tuesday he has picked Pete Hegseth, a Fox News commentator and veteran, as his secretary of defence.
Defence Minister Richard Marles said in an interview with Sky News Australia, which like Fox is owned by News Corporation, he had not met Hegseth and congratulated him on the “hugely significant role”.
“I really look forward to the opportunity of meeting Pete Hegseth and of working closely with him, as I have with Lloyd Austin, who I’ll be seeing later this week,” he said.
“So much of the way in which our relationship, our full bilateral relationship between Australia and America plays out happens through the prism of defence,” he added.
Australia had committed to “historic levels of increased defence spending” with A$50 billion (US$32.69 billion) of additional spending over the decade, he said.
Albanese, who will travel to the APEC and G20 summits in Peru and Brazil over the next few days, said his focus was on “free and fair trade”, amid strategic competition between the US and China.
“We think that we can play a role as a middle power … we of course have an alliance with the US, but China is our major trading partner,” he said.
China is Australia’s largest export market, with trade dominated by iron ore, gas and coal.
